“My son, obey my words, and treasure my commands. Keep my commands and live, and guard my instructions as you would the pupil of your eye. Tie them to your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart. Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call understanding your relative. She will keep you from a forbidden woman, a wayward woman with her flattering talk.” (Proverbs‬ ‭7‬:‭1‬-‭5‬ ‭CSB‬‬ – Read the chapter)

With three chapters now left in this opening section of Proverbs, one of the themes we have seen over and over again is this strong exhortation for the reader to heed the counsel and command of the writer; for the son to heed his father. Inasmuch as this is Solomon writing to his own children, though, we can receive all of this as our heavenly Father’s attempt to pass along His divine wisdom to us. So then, how can we actually receive His wisdom? Let’s talk about some ways.

If you’ll remember back a few months, Solomon opened the entire collection of wisdom by exhorting his son to heed his counsel. Not every chapter starts out this way, but at least one chapter repeats the call three different times. if I’m remembering correctly, Solomon repeats a version of this charge about once per chapter in the end. This really did matter to him. It should to us too.

Receiving godly wisdom isn’t just something to which we should give a cursory attention because it might make life a bit more convenient. It is truly a matter of life and death. We won’t take very long to look at this particular passage because we’ve explored all of these themes in more detail in the last two weeks, but let’s at least walk through what Solomon has to say here. His words as inspired by the Holy Spirit and preserved by Him down through the centuries of human history really do matter that much.

Solomon calls us here to treasure his commands. I have a reasonable large collection of pins from all over the country and the world. I used to really treasure that collection. I took them out to look at them often. I would occasionally wear one on my shirt to show off to friends. I finally purchased a couple of shadow boxes to display a whole bunch of them in the house. I still have that collection in a bag somewhere, but I can’t think of the last time I looked at or did anything with them. I don’t treasure them like I once did.

When you truly treasure something, it shows. You give it lots of attention. You display it purposefully where others can see. You go back to it again and again to make sure you are caring for it well. This needs to be our attitude when it comes to the words of God. We are to “guard my instructions as you would the pupil of your eye.” You protect your eyes diligently, working to keep anything from spoiling or harming them. And you did this not just because, but so that you can see clearly where to go.

His words give life to those who follow them. They will light a path toward righteousness. They will keep us from falling into all sorts of dangers that will otherwise make our lives a slowly unfolding disaster (or sometimes a quickly unfolding one). To belabor the point, this really is a matter of life and death. “Keep my commands and live.”

Solomon again uses the heart binding imagery he did at the beginning of chapter 6, but he adds another picture to how we should keep this godly wisdom fresh. “Tie them to your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.” Put God’s word where you not only see it regularly, but where it will be an intentionally integrated part of what you do. You use your fingers for just about everything. You barely ever go more than a few minutes without using your fingers in some way. So should it be with God’s words.

“Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister,’ and call understanding your relative.” There are few people in the world you know so well as your sibling. You are with them all the time. You see them when they are up and when they are down. You know the ins and outs of how they think and what they like. Again, this kind of intimate knowledge of the Scriptures is our goal.

And how do we come by this? By spending time in them. Daily. Every single day you should be in God’s word in some form or fashion. Some days you will only have time to be in it for a few minutes. Other days, you will be able to budget a great deal more time. Do all of it. Don’t be discouraged when you hear testimonies from people who talk about spending over an hour every single day in careful Bible study. Those are often pastors for whom it is literally their job to study the Scriptures. Or, they are people who are neglecting their family in some way to do so.

Now, that doesn’t mean that spending an hour in the Scriptures or more at a time if you can is a bad thing. That’s a great thing to do and often if you can. I simply mean what I said: Don’t let someone else’s habits make you feel good or bad about yours. They are not your guide. You set your own patterns. Pursue God through His word confidently and intentionally so that you know it and Him better all the time.

If you do this, you will gradually learn to stay away from dangerous temptation. You will learn to recognize it for what it is and go running in the other direction. “She will keep you from a forbidden woman, a wayward woman with her flattering talk.” Knowing the Scriptures well will help in this regard in two ways. Number one and again, you will learn to spot temptation from a distance so you can stay far away from it in the first place.

Number two, so much of the temptation we encounter happens when we have drifted from the path of life a bit. Temptation is rarely sitting right out in the middle of our path. Rather, we get distracted by something else, stray from the path a bit, and it is there to invite us further in the wrong direction. When we are deeply connected to God’s word, we are far less likely to drift from the path to even be able to encounter temptation. And, so we are clear, Solomon’s culture-rooted language aside, temptation is not gendered. It can come from any source and it goes after everybody.

I hope you were paying attention because that was Solomon’s goal. And with yet another of these introductions out of the way, next week now we will move into his next warning. He is going to set up an elaborate illustration for us that is pretty colorful and will have us thinking about sexual temptation yet again. Tomorrow we’ll talk a bit more about things that can help contribute to a growing church. Until then.